


When The Lights Come Up

by contraryGreymalkin



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ashen Romance | Auspistice, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-18
Updated: 2013-06-18
Packaged: 2017-12-15 09:43:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/848076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/contraryGreymalkin/pseuds/contraryGreymalkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Equius doesn't believe in monsters.  When he and Gamzee finally meet Jade Harley, he may have to re-evaluate that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When The Lights Come Up

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt:  
> There is nothing in the dark that isn't there when the lights are on.  
> -Rod Serling

Nepeta's talk of werewolves is, of course, ridiculous. As ridiculous as her insistence on pretending to be a cat at every moment of the night, although you have to admit that it does lend a certain admirable consistency to her choice of roleplaying scenarios... even though the very premise of trolls who turn into wolves and back again depending on the state of the moons is biologically impossible, and even if it were not, you would hardly find such a creature intimidating, given your own great strength.

So naturally, the degree to which you find Jade Harley intimidating at first sight shakes you to your core.

 

It's obscurely pleasing to see that the highblood has the same reaction, despite his apparent ascension and the fact that falling to the Witch of Space's whim is surely neither heroic nor just. (Though a whisper in the back of your brain insists that he didn't ascend at all, and you quash it swiftly, before it threatens to inflame your loathing of the vile clown to unacceptable levels. It comes back anyway.)

And for some reason you're not sure you want to consider too closely, it's also obscurely reassuring.

 

For her part, she looks at you both with a expression you've only seen on Maryam, and inevitably the day comes when you wake from a daymare of long fingers at your throat and twisting bowstrings and bloodstained lips _so_ close to yours, to find her by your cocoon yelling your name. "He's left himself in your head," she tells you, harsh, once you make it clear to her you're awake. "And it's not fair and it's not right and I won't see it happen to anyone else!" And then she's gone, and you wonder with a cold chill if she was a dream herself.

When you see her all but hitting him with a newspaper at breakfast, you decide it was most likely real.

 

The third time she teleports between you during a fight, you see him push back, purple eyes narrowing as he searches out her fears. She makes as if to go for his throat, and gives him a snarling grin as he backs away, shaken. You hate her for that - for an alien to even threaten to lay hands, or fangs, on someone as high as him is nothing short of sacrilege - but still, you're unforgivably grateful.

The one time you find yourself actually willing to commit the same sacrilege, she teleports him away, leaving your hands empty. You're grateful for that too.

 

You know, of course, the things they've both done, willing or unwilling. You understand why only Vantas will go near the highblood, why Roxy looks slightly spooked every time Jade teleports into the room, why even Nepeta drew the three of you together on her wall with some trepidation, and you know everyone thinks you should run too, as far and fast as you can. But you would rather deal open-eyed with fearsome beings in the light than run from mother-knows-what in the dark.

Besides, it's indisputable that you loathe them both, and for the time being, you are determined to be content.


End file.
